Method of photographically reproducing pictures represented on curved surfaces



May 29, 1923. 1,456,954

G. VON L- KEN METHOD OF PHOTOGRAPHICALLY REPRODUCI PICTURES REPRESENTED 0N CURVED SURFACES Filed June 16 1921 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 May 29, 1923. "1,456,954

G. VON LUCKEN METHOD OF VPHOTOGRAPHICALLY REPRODUCING PICTURES REPRESENTED ON CURVED SURFACES Filed June 16 1921 2 SheptS-SheBb 2 Patented May 29,1923.

UNITE-o STATES PATENT OFFICE.

GOTTI'BIED VON L'U'Cm, OI BERLIN, GERMANY.

METHOD OF PHOTOGRAPHIOALLY REPRODUCING PICTURES REPRESENTED OH CUBVED SURFACES.

Application filed June 16, 1821. Serial No. 478,088.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, Dr. Gor'rran-zo voN LliC-KEN, residing at Berlin, Germany, have invented certain new and useful Im rovements in Methods of Photogra )hical y Reproducing Pictures Represent on Curved Surfaces, of which the following is a specification.

To enable the pictures drawn on curved surfaces of Grecian vases,-which are the only relics of Grecian painting of the classical epoch, to be manifolded by photography, heliographic printing etc. and to be illustrated in books, archeologists frequently desire to reproduce these pictures on a plane surface without distorting them. The manifolding of these pictures has hitherto been carried out by means of handmade copies, but, apart from the fact that such drawings are always inaccurate, they are exceedingly expensive. Thus the re-war cost of 60 plates of the work of urtwiingler-Reichhold published by Bruckmann in Munich and now out of print amounted to 600 marks.

Many attempts have been made (by A. Smith, Meydenbauer etc.) to produce undistorted photographic reproductions. The vessel to be photographed was arranged to be rotated whilst the photographic plate was shifted, narrow strips of the picture being taken one at a time. All these methods are cumbersome, expensive and cannot be employed in all cases.

- The present invention enables curved pictures to be re roduced on plane surfaces with the aid 0 simple meansand at small cost.

Amumin at first, that only cylindrical or conical sur aces i. e. evolvable surfaces, are to be dealt with, the invention consists in the curved surface being photographed in the ordinary way and in then projecting the negative obtained onto sensitive paper wound round a body of the same shape as the said curved surface. If the photograph is to be of the same size as the original the body round which the sensitive paper is wound must have exactly the same size as the original body and it must be placed in exactl the same the ta in objective and the projecting lens are equa the distances between the body and the objective on theone hand and betweenthe objective and the negative on the sition, and, if the foci of other hand must be the same as the distances between the original body and the objective on the one hand and between the ob ective and the photographic plate on the other hand. If the scale of the drawing is to be different, the body on which the sensitive paper is wound must be similar in shape to the original body, but it must be correspondingly larger or smaller in size and the distances must be altered accordingly. The process may also be employed for ori inal surfaces curved in two directions, if the curvature in the vertical direction of the body is not excessive. In such cases the body round which the sensitive aper is wound must not be congruous to t e original. but must have an evolvablo surface which is the particular cylindrical or conical surface that is most nearly similar to that of the original body.

The invention is illustrated by way of example in the drawing in which Fig. 1 is a direct photograph of the original object shown in Fi 3,

Fig. 2 is a photographic reproduction on the same scale as Fig. 1 produced by the novel process,

Fig. 3 shows the original body on a smaller scale,

Fig. l is a diagrammatic representation of the arrangement for taking the photographs in the ordinary way, and

Fig. 5 is a diagrammatic representation of the arrangement for produci corrected reproductions of the ordina otographs.

The art a to be taken 0 the Grecian vase selected by way of example has a surface which is slightly concave andtapers toward the bottom. A photographic camera with a lens I) and a sensitive plate 0 is placed opposite the' surface a to be taken. The ta 111g camera is preferably placed at a sufficient distance from the object to get its receding portions as well as its rominent portions sufliciently distinct T18 reproduction of the photograph taken is accomplished as followszzA body (1 is made whose size is the same and whose shape is practically similar to that of the ori inal body. Thus in the example illustrate instead of a body that is slightly concave like the original, a boggy with a conical surface has had to be u In the reproducing ap ratus the negative 0 is illumined through t e condenser f by the light e and projected throu h the lens '9 onto the surface of the body round which a sheet of sensitive paper is wound.

I claim 2- The method of photographically repro-,

ducing pictures of curved surfaces, which consists in making a photographic negative of the curved picture surface, winding a sensitized paper on a body having an evolvable surface as similar as possible to that of 1 the surface to be copied and then projecting the negative onto the sensitized paper..

In testimony whereof I have signed this specification in the presence of two witnesses.

GOTTFRIED VON LficKEN. Witnesses:

HEINRICH HILLICKE, ADOLF FRORATE. 

